Improving the effectiveness of innovation policy at regional level: what evidence to support policy?

Presentation by Karen Maguire
Regional Development Policy Division

OECD Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development

Improving the effectiveness of innovation policy at regional level: what evidence to support policy?
In the context of this work, the OECD seeks to expand the kinds of indicators available across OECD regions with respect to innovation-related activity. Such new variables could enhance different quantitative analyses and contribute to typologies of regions or regional innovation systems. Areas being explored include policy indicators, characteristics of inventive activity, and networks associated with inventive activity. With respect to policy indicators, classifications based on information collected in the OECD Survey on the Multi-level governance of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy will be presented. This survey aims to collect information on current practices across OECD countries on S&T and innovation policies with regards to the responsibilities of different levels of government and instruments for coordination. Indicators derived from the OECD REGPAT database include the type of patent applicants (such as firms or universities) and the degree and type of collaboration via co-patenting activity. Finally, preliminary analyses of networks of co-invention will be presented, notably those for sectors such as “green” technologies, ICT and biotech. The characteristics of such networks and their evolution over time reveal different regional roles in terms of connectedness, clustering and centrality.